To the Place Where I Belong
by CriesofCapricorn
Summary: Desmond reflects on the meaning of a home and how he has finally found one. Set in early S5. ---Home, he decided then … home, as trite as it was, was where the heart was.---


**Title:** to the place where I belong  
**Rating:** PG  
**Word Count:** 824**  
****Characters/Pairings:** Desmond, Penny, mentions of Charlie.  
**Genre:** character study, romance  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Lost_ its characters.  
**Warning:** This is unbeta-ed. But it should be a-okay to read considering English is my first language and all... Nevertheless, even though I reread it, if someone notices a mistake (typo or other), let me know and I'll fix it.  
**Prompt:** home  
**Su****mmary:** Desmond reflects on the meaning of a home and how he has finally found one. Set in early S5. _---Home, he decided then … home, as trite as it was, was where the heart was.---_

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Desmond's life has always been mobile. A poor, fatherless family led to taking up work wherever he could find it, even if he didn't particularly want it (for all his faith and love of God, he's still not sure what possessed him to try out priesthood). Unstable work led to many different residences (in his mind, they were all the same – except the one he shared with Penny for that all-too-brief time; he still remembers walls painted red, sloppily and uneven).

He was often in and out of these residences before he could ever really feel accustomed. None of them ever felt like home.

Years later, trapped inside the hatch, saving the world and condemning his sanity, Desmond decided that home … had to be somewhere else. He couldn't – he _wouldn't_ – call this asylum encased of metal and steel his home. He wouldn't call Kelvin his friend. He wouldn't call this mere _existence_ his life. He refused to.

So he shaved. Every morning, right after he made his bed, he shaved to remind himself that this – this dismal dwelling – was not his home. Just another residence among many.

No. Home, he decided then … home, as trite as it was, was where the heart was.

Years after that (or before? He never did fully understand how the time travel thing worked as well as that Faraday lad did), struggling to keep himself alive, Desmond discovered that his constant was Penny. He broke her heart and she saved his life. It seemed unjust, somehow. Like Karma had made a mistake in his favor.

He would never forget it. The relief in his voice (or was it surprise?) that Penny had answered, that she had waited for him … (after all these years, all those angry words … and her faith in them had conquered).

His heart belonged to Penny and hers to Desmond, no matter how much either of them tried to shake it off because they thought the weight of their hearts was too much to carry across unknown oceans (and uncertain fates).

Desmond had experienced near death only hours before Penny found him (endlessly searching for the rightful owner of that heart she carried). Most religious men such as he would call Heaven a home. A place of peace and perfection. But he knew this wasn't it. This wasn't home. (Eyes popping wide open, he coughs up the water and settles back into this life of imperfection and unrest, where seeking home was a battle, but a battle worth fighting for. Just the way he wanted it.)

And when she did find him, he knew. He knew as soon as he heard her voice, supportive and determined, as soon as he saw her face, covered over by luscious blonde locks that the oceanic winds blew feverishly around. He knew that he had finally gotten home.

Home is Penny.

Home is the chase to find her, to find happiness.

Home is a sailboat called _Our Mutual Friend_ because it was inside that sacred Charles Dickens' novel that awaited the words that would keep him going. Home is a sailboat called _Our Mutual Friend_ because it was Charlie Pace, for whom they named their little boy after, who helped bring them together again.

Home is a sailboat on the big blue sea because both Desmond and Penny had spent far too much time on the waters (training for his race to regain his honor or looking for her lost lover) that any edifice of four walls, surrounded by a flourishing garden and a crisply painted fence, sturdy on land, seemed too foreign and strange.

No. Home is a sailboat that rocked on and on, never completely stable, but _strong_ and _persistent_.

Home is a warm bed that swayed on the waves as little Charlie squeezed in between his loving parents. Blonde curls soft beneath a father's fingers; fair skin cool to a mother's lips.

Young Charlie is a little over one year old when Desmond returns from visiting Daniel Faraday's mother (who incidentally turned out to be the same madwoman that told him to leave his precious Penny years ago) and the others from the island he has sworn to try and protect, but has also sworn to keep his distance from. The mental debate would be a difficult one, if not for the pure stupidity in his old friends' reasoning.

He is exhausted and the rocking chair that he and Penny use to play with their son is inviting. He settles back into it and watches his wife and son curled within one another, fast asleep.

Home is Desmond recounting their life story to his boy at bedtime, watching his tiny eyes flutter closed.

Home is Desmond catching Penny watching _them_, with a serene smile on her visage, and knowing that all his mistakes have been forgiven.

He doesn't intend to make any more.

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**A/N:**

Feedback is greatly appreciated, whether it is positive or constructively critical.Thank you! Enjoy!


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